BlogPost 3

How does a teacher represent themselves and what they teach, and at the same time create an environment where all students can learn at their full potential?

I think creating an environment for all students to reach their full potential is a lot harder than it seems. Everyone learns in their own way so I think a classroom has to be set up to fit many different types of teaching styles. The difficulty is in how the teacher goes about this without creating an environment that does the exact opposite. I'm all for making a classroom 'yours' but if the stuff on the walls clutters the space, it can become a distraction and stop the students from being able to really absorb information and learn. A perfect example in my mind of how to create differences in a positive way was in my Junior year history class. The teacher had about six or seven yoga balls, if you got to class early enough you could sometimes grab a yoga ball and sit on it for the class instead of your usual chair. It made it possible for some of the students in my class who usually need to move around a lot, to move without bothering their piers. Another example was you could tell it was her room and that she was a history teacher because she had her students artwork from projects on the walls. Projects such as comics about the cold war that she had graded. It gave people an idea of what she taught and it also helped her student with examples of what previous students had done for different history projects she had assigned. I believe a good teacher uses their own experiences to create an environment that will give each and every student the best opportunity to learn in his or her classroom.